As schools move to adopt Common Core standards, focus shifts to keyboards

Aug. 31, 2013

Loading Photo Galleries ...

Written by

Denise Smith Amos

The Cincinnati Enquirer

A child work on his cursive skills during an Ohio enrichment camp this summer . Few kids are learning cursive these days, in some cases, because schools are too busy teaching them keyboarding skills or other things that are tested. / Enquirer/Leigh Taylor / Cincinnati Enquirer

More

ADVERTISEMENT

As schools swap out old state standards for new Common Core academics, educators are warning about an overlooked casualty of progress — cursive handwriting.

They say that, because Common Core standards don’t call for cursive instruction, public schools are more likely to drop or, at least, de-emphasize it. Their fears are not unfounded.

At least 41 states do not require public schools to teach cursive reading or writing.

Ohio leaves cursive instruction up to schools and districts. Before Common Core, Ohio’s elementary school standards recommended teaching cursive in grades 3 to 4.

Common Core is silent on cursive, but it prioritizes computer use and keyboarding skills because its tests are taken on computers. Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee often means kindergartners are being taught computer skills, teachers said.

A thorny topic

In Ohio, cursive has become a contentious subject. Ohio’s Board of Education’s Achievement Committee in July grilled the Ohio Department of Education’s specialists about cursive instruction. More questions are expected at its next board meeting in September.

Debe Terhar, the board’s president, previously said that schools should be encouraged to keep “best practices.”

“I realize that computer skills are also essential for our children to master,” she said. “I cannot imagine a child who is unable to write their own name in cursive or to be able to read the beautiful cursive writing of the Declaration of Independence.”

Even before Common Core, many schools, in response to No Child Left Behind laws, already had narrowed their curricula mostly to the subjects being tested by their states. Even in the 1990s, cursive writing was given decreasing instructional time, teachers said.

Earlier this year, bills were introduced in state legislatures in North and South Carolina, Indiana and Idaho mandating cursive instruction. In some cases, the bills were supported by companies that sell writing materials.

Jeffrey Mims Jr., a longtime educator who represents Butler and several other counties on the state school board, said closing the book on cursive could limit some children’s futures. “I don’t understand the need to eliminate it,” he said.

“I think it’s a basic element of students’ control and peace of mind. You pay attention to what you’re doing when you’re writing in that format.”

The cursive question recently has become a national one.

In the murder trial of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Florida teen Trayvon Martin, Trayvon’s 19-year-old friend, Rachel Jeantel, testified to being on a cellphone talking with him just before his death. Many in the courtroom were shocked, though, when Jeantel admitted on the stand that she could not read a document a lawyer handed to her because it was written in cursive.

Experts have said handwriting training helps small children develop hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and other brain and memory functions. Mims said cursive writing could be important for children who grow up to be surgeons, painters or some other professional requiring precision with their hands.

Local views

Some local educators say cursive still is worthwhile to some extent.

Woodmore Local Schools Superintendent Linda Bringman said she didn’t know if the district still was teaching cursive writing in any of its schools.

“We’re not required to teach it,” Bringman said, although she noted that in her personal opinion she thought cursive should be taught to students.

She said that when she served as principal at the district’s elementary school, there were cursive writing practice homework sheets sent home with third-grade students to avoid taking away from their classroom instruction time in other subjects.

Catholic schools, long known for emphasizing penmanship, still are teaching it but are using less class time, said Kathy Mears, the National Catholic Education Association’s executive director of elementary schools. Instead of getting it a half hour or so a day, she said, students may get 15 minutes’ practice three times a week.

“I would not drop it, because I do think it’s important for the development of children, but … I realize we’ve given teachers more to teach but not more time,” Mears said.

Pushing for practice

An online poll by Harris Interactive in June showed 79 percent of adult respondents and 68 percent of youth ages 8 to 18 think cursive still should be taught. Nearly 49 percent of adults and 35 percent of youth say practicing reading and writing in cursive improves literacy.

The poll, paid for by pencil maker Mega Brands America, is neither random nor representative of the entire country. It does bear out some biases against those who can’t read cursive, however.

When asked what they assume about people who can’t read or write cursive, 30 percent of adults polled and 25 percent of children judged the person as less literate, and 7 percent of adults and 11 percent of children assumed they are “just not smart.”

However, many of today’s teens are more comfortable texting on cellphones, touch-typing on iPads or tapping on laptop keys.

“A lot of children … can’t really read cursive right now,” Mears said. “I don’t think it’s life-altering, that you won’t survive in the world if you can’t read cursive.”

But students could be missing out on some intangible benefits. David Hire, Coshocton City Schools Superintendent, said his district is committed to teaching cursive, even if they aren’t worried as much about perfect penmanship as was done in the past.

“There is enough research to show how it helps with the thought process, and from a holistic approach we need to have it,” Hire said. “You need to have handwriting because you won’t always be able to use your thumbs and text something.”